The Rise of the Flying Machine. Hugo Byttebier

This model aeroplane possessed a moving horizontal rudder (elevator) that was regulated by a pendulum in tests and was thought to be able to balance the aircraft properly in flight.

      Previously in 1884 Goupil had proposed a system actuated by a pendulum but there is no reason to suppose that Herring had ever heard of Goupil’s proposition because it often happened that different pioneers, who were unconnected with each other, were inspired with the same ideas. The most interesting result that Herring obtained when flying his model plane was that it flew “unmistakably better” when the pendulum was inoperative than when it was free. Here was further proof that an aircraft flies better when inherent stability is obtained by fixed surfaces than when a controlled equilibrium by moving surfaces is attempted. But the urge to regulate the flightpath proved too great and the lesson was lost on Herring who, in his article (like Chanute before him) pointed to the theory that “the securing of stable equilibrium is perhaps the hardest problem of all”.

      As soon as they set to work together, Chanute and Herring tested a few models and then built a composite kite consisting of the grouping together of several kites, due to its resemblance to a stepladder, the “ladder kite”. This apparatus performed very well and it was decided to build a similar larger one which would be capable of carrying a man. In order to proceed from an actual flying glider it was decided first to rebuild a modified Lilienthal-type glider that Herring had built and tested from the highest point of land in New York City in or near the Bronx during 1894.

      In June 1896 Chanute and Herring travelled with the man-carrying kite and the Lilienthal-type glider to the deserts and dunes of the south end of Lake Michigan, about 30 miles from Chicago, and there they set up camp. They were accompanied by two assistants, William Avery and William Paul Butusov, and were later joined by a Dr Ricketts. Butusov was there mainly to test a large albatross-like glider that he built at Chanute’s expense but which, sent off twice in ballast, proved a failure.

      After Herring’s Lilienthal-type glider was first erected on the 22 June a few gliding tests were made, but it was found that “the operator had to shift his position as actively as a tight-rope dance but to greater distances, to avoid being overturned”. Chanute believed that the differences in flying behaviour between their Lilienthal-type glider and the original were due to Lilienthal’s skill “developed by four or five years of practice”. But the difference lay not so much in Lilienthal’s superior skill but in the fact that Lilienthal had at first experienced the same difficulties in maintaining balance and had then developed his glider into an inherently stable machine.

      “After having been broken and mended a number of times” the so-called Lilienthal glider was wrecked beyond repair on 29 June and “discarded altogether”. “Glad to be rid of it” wrote Chanute in his diary that evening.

      The second machine, based on the ladder kite, was erected on 23 June and it consisted of “six pairs of wings superimposed and trussed together; pivoted at their roots upon a central frame, the lower chord of which was spread open to receive a man at the center”. The aim was “to study equilibrium and that alone” as Chanute later wrote and the pilot was expected to steer by moving his body in the Lilienthal style, “stability to be maintained by the movements of the wings above him, which swung on their pivots back and forth restricted by rubber springs”. Chanute thought that it would be better to balance the aircraft by moving the wings instead of the body, or to use his own words “it might be preferable to provide moving mechanism within the apparatus itself”. He thought that this was a better system for maintaining balance than the “first method tested in which the man moved and the wings remained fixed”. But during the trials it was soon found that what had worked as a fixed-wing kite did not work very well in the man-carrying version. All those moving wings were not leading to stability at all and on 29 June the grouping of the wings was changed to four pairs in front and two pairs at the rear to serve as tail.

      On 1 July the machine was again remodelled as a quinqueplane with one set of wings to the rear. This new shape was given the nickname “Katydid” and Chanute found that this glider worked best of all. The tail was made flexible and vibrated up and down. Some 200 glides were made with this machine, but Chanute’s associates were not completely satisfied because the operator still had to move a great deal and the decision was taken to reconstruct the multiple-wing machine completely and to design and build a new one. They then broke camp and returned to Chicago.

      During July and August 1896 the multiple-wing machine was again rebuilt with four pairs of wings in front instead of the former five, even though weight was a problem and the multiplicity of wings was felt to produce too much drag. Meanwhile a new triplane glider was designed by Chanute and Herring jointly and the working drawings were made by Chanute. The important change was that the wings of the new triplane were fixed and were trussed together in order to obtain strength and rigidity. As a former expert builder of bridges Chanute used the Pratt truss which was the best construction form when the goal was to combine strength with economy of material and so to achieve light weight. It was the first time the Pratt truss was used on a flying machine and it remained the standard for all triplanes and biplanes built thereafter.

      The triplane’s frame was of spruce and the surfaces were covered with varnished Japanese silk. It was a modern construction and weighed 33.5 lbs with a wing surface of 143.5 sq ft.

      The new glider incorporated a flexibly-mounted tail boom, restrained by springs, to dampen the effects of gusts. While Chanute credited Herring as the inventor of the elastic tail, he nevertheless gave Avery credit for perfecting it. Chanute sometimes referred to this tail as a Pénaud tail with an angle of seven to eight degrees to the main surfaces, but Herring corrected him on that point in a letter dated January 5 1902. The purpose for making the tail instead of the wings movable was basically the same, to cope with sudden gusts of wind and maintain the craft’s balance.

      

      Chanute’s party returned to the shores of Lake Michigan on 20 August. Many glides were made with the quadruplane and greater distances were covered than with the former quinqueplane.

      When the fixed-wing triplane was tested it was found that the lower wing got caught on the ground and on 31 August it was decided to remove it. The two remaining wings were then connected together “by a girder composed of vertical struts and diagonal ties” and so became the strong and light biplane construction that remained in use until the end of the 1920s. Its wing surface was 135 sq ft and to honour Herring’s work in connection with it, Chanute at first called it the “Herring machine”, much to the latter’s gratification.

      As it had fixed surfaces and a tail that would only move when strong pressure was applied, the triplane which had very soon become the biplane glider, flew much better than anything they had tried before and Herring and Avery made some 2,000 beautiful glides in this machine. Herring’s longest was 360 ft in fourteen seconds. It was also able to fly in winds of up to 31 mph, stronger than anything Lilienthal had dared to tackle.

      Hitherto, the relations between Chanute and his associates had been all that could be wished for, but Herring’s character again asserted itself and on 13 September he confided to a reporter about a disagreement with Chanute, whereupon Chanute, like Langley before him, made no effort to keep him. The reporter thought that Herring’s attitude was prompted by egotism and jealousy. According to Herring, he left because he objected to the test of the Butusov glider, which he considered unsafe. But Chanute wrote that Herring left “because he thought that he would be able to solve the problem of human flight singlehanded... In order to be alone in reaping future rewards”.

      In spite of these personal problems, Chanute, who was a very patient and mild-mannered man, remained on friendly terms with Herring, who then found a new backer in Matthias C. Arnot, a young banker from Elmira who had tried gliding and was very interested in aeronautics.

      With Arnot’s help Herring built a slightly smaller version of the Chanute-Herring biplane of 1896. The new Herring-Arnot glider was tested at a new Indiana Dunes location with excellent results. Chanute was present in an advisory capacity for several of the tests held between 13 and 17 September and 1897, when a number of photographs